First year of Unilever’ Decarbonization Action Plan S

Enviro-Stewards and Unilever completed a process integration study and decarbonization action plan at Unilever’s Hellman’s Mayonnaise Rexdale production facility. Half to two thirds of thermal energy discharge will be avoided through conservation and reuse with the remainder supplied by renewable energy-fed electric boilers. Outcomes are tracked live within Enviro-Stewards’ System to Track Energy Water & Waste Improvement (STEWWI) EMIS platform. The first year’s measures—quick wins—are saving over $170,000 per year in utilities and 468 tonnes CO2e/year of GHG emissions. This will help justify the 2nd year’s measures—heat reuse. Unsurprisingly the success at the home of Hellmann’s Mayonnaise is spreading very well, inspiring similar plans for 6 other Unilever facilities.   

Unilever Foods is embarking on a sustainability journey to eliminate carbon emissions from their production facilities by 2030 and secure net zero emissions—from sourcing through point of sale—by 2039.

In order to prepare a costed decarbonization pathway and begin that journey, Enviro-Stewards completed a Process Integration (PI) study of the packaged food company’s Toronto facility in 2023. The PI study involved measuring thermal sources and thermal sinks of the facility to determine where heat could be recovered.

These findings were then used to develop a credible and affordable decarbonization roadmap that would completely address scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030. The plan lays out how to first reduce (through heat conservation and reuse) the plant’s thermal energy demand by half to two thirds—depending on which direction their client wants to go with their steam shrink tunnels.

Once this thermal energy reduction is achieved the steam demand at the facility will be much less, allowing the facility to purchase a much smaller electric boiler and switch to electrification for the remaining heat required. The electricity consumed could then be replenished through the purchase of renewable energy credits, bringing the company far closer to where they want to be and Enviro-Stewards was well-equipped to both shepherd and track this trek.

The Rexdale, Toronto site is also a test site for the System to Track Energy Water & Waste Improvement (STEWWI) Energy Management Information System (EMIS) platform developed by Enviro-Stewards. This system monitors the status and outcomes of each conservation measure, generating notices upon loss of expected performance and showing accumulated savings to date. The early stages (quick wins heat reuse) tend to rapidly pay for themselves.

Later stages require larger investments with longer returns, which can be an obstacle to the kind of progress that needs to happen for Canada to reach net-zero. These larger investments may require grants to make the payback periods more attractive. A concerted effort is required to inform leadership and ownership of the benefits of the proposed sustainability action plan and living, mayonnaise-making projects like this one should inspire more government investment. Enviro-Stewards, is helping their client make commitment, as well as a condiment and that kind of action deserves to be met half-way
Enviro-Stewards Inc. served as sustainability engineer on the project. Its work included in-plant analysis, developing a credible affordable action plan, facilitating implementation of conservation measures, design of strategic measures, securing funding, training of staff and implementation of its own Stewwi Energy Management Information system (EMIS).

It was the practicality, affordability and astounding early outcomes of the decarbonization action plan prepared for Rexdale that inspired 6 other Unilever facilities—the plants producing Dove soap, Knorr Soup, Axe deodorant, and shampoo among other products—to retain Enviro-Stewards to complete similar process integration studies and costed decarbonization action plans for them as well.

Each of these facilities already had decarbonization action plans, however these plans focused on alternative energy procurement and absorbing increased costs forever. The Enviro-Stewards plans developed for each of the facilities instead identified measures to first reduce consumption (typically by more than half) through conservation and reuse. This increased the credibility of the plans while reducing the size and cost of subsequent measures. Unilever global staff even met with Enviro-Stewards engineers to understand how they intended to change production processes that had been in place for up to a century.

Understanding the value of sharing their knowledge and real-world experience, Unilever corporate agreed to the inclusion of Unilever Foods’ zero-emission roadmap as a case study in Enviro-Stewards founder Bruce Taylor’s Sustainable Business Textbook: Insights from the Field of Sustainability Engineering, published in April of 2025. This case study will help inform engineering and business students, as well as working professionals, that zero emissions is an achievable, affordable goal that makes good business sense. This textbook also serves as the manual for the 8 session Green Skills course that EMC retained Enviro-Stewards to develop and deliver to cohorts of manufacturing professionals. The lesson is that sustainability is not only possible, but achievable quickly.

The plant that agreed to serve as a pilot site for the System to Track Energy Water & Waste Improvement (STEWWI) software platform developed by Enviro-Stewards, now serves as a demonstration model of what can be quantifiably achieved. The feedback and market credibility earned in this project are invaluable in the launch and refinement of the STEWWI platform which will be used to shepherd many more facilities from establishing their baselines and targets, through identification and implementation of conservation measures, while assuring compliance with sustainability targets.

Unsurprisingly the success at Unilever Rexdale, home of Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, is spreading very smoothly.